Mike Rosen & education
He didn’t say, or tell how many graduates can’t speak English.
He didn’t
After condemning one legislator for remarks about charter schools, he never explained why charters have the liberty to design themselves as competitive schools, when legislators and the Administrative/EdSchool Complex won’t let public school faculties and parents do the same.
He never explained why, after forty years of failure, legislators and the Complex should continue wasting monies by burdening schools while never improving them.
And finally: a teaching profession is illegal here. Teachers may not influence teacher training or school standards. A union is the only kind of association they may have, to protect them and students from Education’s unimaginative “upper class” leaders.
Mike Rosen needs some schooling about schooling.
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The failure of the public schools mirrors that of all businesses burdened with unions. They are not permitted to reward individual achievement and must keep in lockstep where all are the same for purposes of pay and promotion.
The schools are a particularly vile example of this because their failures don't cause financial loss they cause a loss of our children's future..
Back in the 70's I decided to change from engineering to education. I had all of the science and math credits and was told I had to take education courses to make me a better teacher. That sounded logical until I was in the class. Our first class consisted of the teacher's union reps coming in and explaining how we needed to join the union even before we graduated from college so that we could have the union's "help" in finding jobs. It was also explained that if we had a difficult adminsistration being active in the union wuld make it less likely that we would be terminated.
Other education courses consisted of little more than how to make a lesson plan (probably the only valuable course in the bunch), how to run the video equipment like projectors, film strip projectors, video tape recorders and a lesson on the wonderful resources available from the libraries. When I questioned the source of one section of the materials as being quite radical I was told that I was a trouble maker and should just listen and learn. I listened and when I disagreed with some of the scientific material as being just plain wrong I was in an argument with a professor who actually argued that zero times anything was one not zero. I'm not kidding. I explained that I had taken my hard science courses at the Colorado School of Mines and that their separation of rocks classification was just plain wrong I was told that it was the way the national lesson plan listed it and that was that. I left school at the end of that semester before I resorted to strangling any other professors for whom accuracy was second to the union line. Since then I have struggled to make myself heard in the schools for my nephews and now for my eight year old grand daughter.
Give parents vouchers. Let the parents decide which schools to use. The vocal minority who would defend the present system doesn't seem to include you. Why limit the choices for kids because we have to protect the teachers from accountability? Kids don't have time to wait for a perfect solution. And those kids whose parents don't care about education should not be allowed to hold back the others. Pleae give the kids a chance and get rid of the union bottlenecks that are preventing meaningful school reform.
Daniel,
There is only so much room in a column for Rosen to use. He cannot address every little pet issue that you have trouble with.
He is on KOA radio - 850 on your dial. His show is on from 9 AM - 11:45 each weekday. I suggest you call him on his radio show (303-713-8585) the next time he discusses this issue.
Posted by Pat on May 30, 2007 04:02 PMAs an old fart I missed going to a "union" school by a few years.
It was tough in those days; we were expected to learn to read well enough at each grade level to advance to the next grade and also to "pass" the other subjects also to advance to the next grade.
Strange as it seems now discipline was never a real problem in the "old days". I cannot remember ever hearing a student talk back to a teacher.
The worst misconduct in those day was talking out of turn, chewing gum, or passing notes.
Punishment ranged from being stood in the corner, a trip to the principals office, or a meeting with the "board" of education.
I got my first paddeling in the first grade and I complained to my mother. The one she gave me at home that night was much worse than the one I got at school.
That was'nt my last paddeling I got at school but it was sure as hell the last one I told Mom about.